When It All Crumbles
by ArtisticOddity
Summary: When a training mission for an academy just outside the Federation's reach ends in destruction and desperate distress calls the crew of the "Discovery" is surprised to find that the Enterprise has answered their call and comes to their rescue. Can the survivors move past the tragedy they've found with the help of the crew of the Enterprise? What relationships will form, or crumble?
1. The Rescue

The bridge of the training vessel "Discovery" was chaos as alarms sounded, lights flashed, and tempers ran high in the utter state of emergency. What was intended to be a short mission to run some supplies to a trading outpost and return to school had become a disaster and now all lives aboard the Discovery were in danger. They knew from the beginning it would be a struggle, having been assigned positions that none of them could successfully perform, but accepted their assignment in optimism and set out.

The ship's captain, Blake Richards, was a young man whose family original came from Earth but fled to the farthest reaches of the galaxy for reasons they never told. He wanted to be in control, but never would have accepted the title so readily if he knew what the position really meant. He had no qualities of a captain, and now his entire crew hated him more than they ever had. He had no other strategies once they were attacked than to hide in his quarters and wait to die with the rest of his crew. His second in command had already been killed, and with no one to help him he couldn't face his crew any longer.

Left on the bridge was a young Antirian man named Taro, a human woman who went by Tanner, and a nomadic traveler who had been nicknamed "Rain" as his fellow crewmembers had difficulty pronouncing his name. None of their equipment was working, sparks short circus plagued their worst nightmare while they frantically worked to remedy the situation.

"I'm just getting static!" Taro screamed over the chaos to Tanner as she lay under a navigations computer attempting to reattach some wiring. He had a manual in the chair beside him, shouting the text to her as she tried to rewire the system enough to get power to their communications systems to send a distress signal.

"Keep trying Taro, let me know when you get something!" she growled response before kicking a communication's panel and yelling into it.

"Engineering, do you have an update?!"

"No updates you want to hear! Everything's failing! Everything!"

"Zarus listen to me! You have to do SOMETHING or everyone is going to die!" Rain snapped as she continued to work. Tanner could see on the screen beside her as her pale-blue skinned friend fell into hysterics while the other two engineers tried to repair some of the seemingly-endless damage to their engines.

Her only response was to kick Rain as hard as she could while listening to the hopelessness that poured into the bridge through the communications screen. "Well what do you want Tanner?" he demanded but wasn't given a chance to respond as Taro's project momentarily yielded more than static.

"This is…. T. Kirk…. sig….respond!"

"HELLO! HEY! I-I GOT A RESPONSE! HEY! S-STAY ON THE LINE! STAY WITH US!" Taro screamed while trying to clear up the transmission. "Switch me! Get that navigations system online if you can! Rain's gonna use it to send a signal they can track us with, if he can!" Tanner ordered and fell beside the communications station.

"This is the training vessel 'Discovery' requesting immediate assistance!" she shouted as if quoting a textbook while Zarus cried through the communications in the background and Rain and Taro argued over alarms that threatened to drown them all out entirely.

"Discovery this Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise, we have received your message. We are on our way to your location, what is the nature of your emergency?"

Just as Tanner went to answer the ship violently shook and for a few seconds all power went out. As the lights came back on the end of another transmission came through with urgency lacing the Captain's voice.

"...covery, acknowledge!"

"We're here! We were… O-our systems, everything's fried! Our life supports are failing we are losing power," Her voice trailed off in disbelief as the communications panel short-circuited.

Drifting in space without the slightest control of their fate what was left of the crew surrendered to despair. Some held one another and cried, others took their anger out on the equipment around them, and some simply sat in shock. "How much of that message do you think they got?" Tanner questioned blankly.

"I'd say they got to 'life supports' before the transmission dropped." Taro answered softly

The door to the bridge opened to reveal Zarus, sweaty and exhausted. The tribal markings of his people reflecting the red alert lights as he sat slowly joined his fellow "officers".

"If we had the right tools and a real engineer, we could've made it." he shrugged weakly and sat on the ground among his fellows moments before the power went out for the last time, sealing them on the bridge.

"Help's coming," Tanner smiled hopefully in an attempt to comfort him but he waved it off and began to cry.

"It's gonna explode. We live in luck and bad luck right now. The whole thing, is going, to explode."

Tanner's breath left her as the room seemed to stand still. The very air around them stiffened for a moment before the emotions took over once again. She looked up at Rain who was seated calmly in the Captain's chair, uncharacteristically calm, while pulling a recorder out of a compartment beside him.

"Captain's log, star-date… I'm not even sure anymore. I'm not really a captain either but ours is locked in his quarters and his second in command is dead so… so that happened. This is really just to let everyone know what happened here. The 'Discovery' was meant as a training vessel for young crews from the Academy like us to train to be on a real starship. For our test we were sent on a short interplanetary mission to deliver some supplies to a colony. When we sent the message that we had arrived with the supplies, we were attacked.

We've sent a distress call out, of all vessels to rescue us from total failure and death the 'Enterprise' has responded. We've all read about the Federation's gem, and if they get here in time we will be home soon. If not… I love you Mama. Pop.

"Varain K'shari, signing off. It was a good voyage."

As Rain's recording ended and the log was secured to his person Zarus gave a weak laugh. "So that's how you pronounce your surname." he commented blankly.

"It's been a good voyage." Tanner agreed quietly while recalling the ups and downs and accepting that no one would be leaving the ship alive. Tears slid down her face as Taro held onto her like she was the last life preserve he had. Outside the doors they could hear other crew members shouting in the absence of the alarms but even that eventually silenced. Soon they sat in the dark, fearful of the end they couldn't prevent.

"Sir! Their reactor core, she's gone critical!" a heavily accented voice suddenly echoed from outside the bridge. The voice didn't belong to anyone on board the Discovery, and left the crewmembers that heard it to question if they had become delusional. The Bridge stayed silent as all trapped inside listened for new voices, all hoping for rescue but afraid to accept the possibility.

"Mr. Spock, get that door open! I want the crew and passengers of this vessel aboard the Enterprise on the double!"

"Yes, Captain."

As the three men exchanged orders and acknowledgements in the hall Taro held his breath and stared at the doors. He muttered under his breath a prayer native to his people for the door to open. Though the time that passed seemed far too long the doors finally sprang open to reveal a tall man with blank features and pointed ears staring back at him.

Overcome with emotions, he cried out in relief and ran to the man, threw his arms around him. He knew that his actions would offend the Vulcan that was reluctantly, and patiently waiting to be released but didn't care at the moment as he wept his thanks before being pulled away to follow the other evacuees of his crew.

"Yes, quickly we haven't much time." the man instructed once the overly emotional man was out of sight. Zarus pulled Tanner to her feet as Rain took and pushed her to follow.

"That's the last from the bridge, Captain." their rescuer reported once they joined a man dressed in gold, standing as stoic in the chaos as his blue-clad officer that stood beside them.

"Captain Kirk?" Tanner questioned as the tears continued to escape her eyes. The reality of being rescued was beginning to hit her but so was the weight of knowing that not everyone was able to be saved.

"In the flesh. Stand still, we're about to beam aboard the Enterprise. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt."

Tanner closed her eyes like a frightened child. Transportation of this sort wasn't something she had read and studied, but never experienced. When her eyes opened she was in a small transporter room surrounded by her crewmen as well as countless medical staff from the Enterprise. Bodies were being carried out, nurses were evaluating wounded as they writhed and cried from their injuries. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. That, or her body seemed unresponsive when she willed herself to move.

"No, not possible," Zarus whispered as his eyes landed on the body of a woman with burns covering all that he could see. "Ta'sa, Ta'sa please," he pleaded before continuing his desperate attempts to revive her in their own language. If it weren't for their identical markings she would have hardly been recognizable but anyone left standing from the Discovery knew that he had found his sister.

"Don't look, just don't look," Rain instructed while keeping his back turned and his eyes closed. He sat defeated in the same spot he had appeared in, struggling to find some sort of peace in the tragedy that surrounded him while crewmen of the Enterprise tried to coax him from the transporter pad.

The transporter room had turned into a warzone as the medical staff ran around administering medications and bandages as quickly as the safety of their patients would allow. The Discovery's doctor was among them, frantically working over an injured crewmember. She didn't understand how to use the equipment brought by the Enterprise's medics, but was trying everything she could to mimic them as they saved lives around her.

"Don't you kids have any doctors on board?!" a dark headed man with an irritated southern drawl demanded over the triage as he moved to take over from her, seeing she was losing the patient, but she wouldn't move her attention from the woman she was working on.

"I can be a doctor, Juna stay with me ok? Stay with me please Juna. P-please don't die, don't die ok? Please don't," She broke down into hysterics and was pulled from the situation by a nurse when the man demanding doctors announced that Juna was lost, but her cries still echoed alongside the others.

"Julian died when we got over here too. He fell from some equipment, got cut up real bad." Taro explained to Tanner and Rain as they stood in horror trying to block out the onslaught of emotions that surrounded them.

"She was with him?" Rain questioned.

"Mmhmm, Araya held his hands. Tried to save him, kept saying she'd save him, and asking him to stay with her like she did with Juna trying to use the equipment this ship's doctors had. It wasn't like in the books when they close their eyes all peaceful like. He just kept looking at her, and then his eyes were just… I-I don't know. Empty.

Neither Tanner or Rain could think of a reply as they thought of how much pain Araya was suffering. Standing beside some of the crewmen of the Enterprise Araya could have been mistaken for a child. She was the youngest member of the Discovery's crew, surpassing her peers in rank and grade by her brilliance in science and botany, but she wasn't meant for medical. Seeing others in pain always hurt her, and often she would cry for her friends if they were suffering. Being responsible for healing others, and now failing to do so and watching them die, was a fate unimaginable for her.

"Hey look, there's our 'captain', probably talkin' himself up to a real Captain." Rain scoffed, turning the attention to a dusty-haired young man that stood with his hands behind his back awkwardly conversing with Captain Kirk. They couldn't hear the conversation but knew that it had to be about the 'great lengths' he went through to save the Discovery, and how he 'gave his all' when in reality he was locked in his quarters hiding. At the end of their talk Kirk placed his hand on the younger captain's shoulder in support and let him walk away from the chaos.

"A live bomb would make a better Captain than that useless bag of trash." Rain grumbled while Tanner turned her back and slid down the wall behind them to rest in a defeated heap. Surrounded by so much tragedy she began to think that maybe rescue was worse than death.

"Alright everyone, let's get you settled in. Dr. McCoy will take good care of our wounded friends, there's no need to worry. Now, let's get the rest of you taken care of." Captain Kirk announced as several of his crew began to usher the healthy survivors to spare quarters. The arrangements were two to three in each room but even then no one felt crowded. The crew of the late Discovery were seemingly mesmerized by the sheer grandeur of the Enterprise. It was to them more of a small city than a starship and what was more impressive was the crew itself. Everyone seemed to come from elite training in their fields. The Discovery's crew was hardly trained at all.

"Ms. Tanner, you will be staying here. Gentlemen, the quarters just down the way will be left open for you. If you need anything, anything at all, please don't hesitate to ask. Once you're settled in I'd like to have a word with your officers about this attack, if that's all right." Captain Kirk announced at the end of the tour and assigning of quarters. The group around him nodded and murmured various agreements and stumbled into their rooms.

The moment Tanner's door closed behind her she fell to the floor as the weight of the universe crashed down upon her. Similarly her fellows felt the same weight collapse their bodies as well. Taro found a small table in the room he had been given and sat down, curling his legs into himself and praying for everyone around him. Zarus was laying down on his bed in the corner staring at a wall as tears poured from his eyes. Rain had found his way to the ship's gym area and was focusing all of his anger and pain into an old fashioned heavy bag. The young woman who had been assigned as the Discovery's medic, Araya, sat beside the wounded in sick bay while watching Dr. McCoy work, hoping that one day she could save lives as he did.

For many would-be crewmen this was the moment that had them deciding if they would stay a crew, or find a peaceful life elsewhere.

Oddly enough, for many of them the choice was to stay if the others stayed. Though the emotions of loss and grief ran high, the fear of losing their crew seemed to be at the front of everyone's minds and the obvious emotional state of the Discovery's crew had Captain Kirk announcing that he would see its officers in the morning after a good healthy rest. Doctor's orders.

As the Captain walked from the newly assigned quarters he thought of the situation he was in. Of course their scheduled rendezvous with another ship to take aboard Earth's ambassador couldn't be compromised, and he was already on a strict schedule as it was. Stopping to land the Discovery survivors was simply not an option. Unfortunately this meant that they would have to stay aboard the Enterprise until its diplomatic duties had been settled, which would take weeks by the current estimate.

He took his place on the bridge and observed the debris of what once was the Discovery vessel as they set their course for the rendezvous point. The bridge was eerily quiet as each crewmember went about their duties in silence. The tragic rescue had even the most diligent and experienced among them in a state of unease while most were downright shaken to their core.

Shaking the unease from himself the Captain turned his eyes to the helm and nodded his command. "Mr. Sulu, get us out of here."

"Aye. Sir."


	2. Aftermath

The day following the rescue of the Discovery's crew was a challenge for all involved. Though the physical injuries for most of the surviving wounded crewmembers were manageable, Dr. McCoy had his work cut out for him with Araya who had every dedication to becoming a skilled physician but hardly any guidance in the field at all. He could see as well as anyone else that she was channeling her grief and loss into study and so gave her simple and safe tasks to keep her busy but he knew that soon she would have to face the reality of what had happened.

Zarus hadn't left his bed, had no intentions on moving in the near future while Taro had fallen into the routine of a mother hen of sorts to try and bring him out of it. Zarus refused food, Taro brought it to the table beside his bed and left it. When Zarus would lash out in anger, Taro would let it roll off his shoulders like the rain and give him some space, but he refused to leave his friend alone in his sorrows.

Rain had slept in the gym after exhausting himself on the heavy bag the night before. It had started as a simple workout but soon he found that with each punch more tears appeared in his eyes. Through the haze of his anguish he saw an enemy where the bag once was and the padded thudding of his fists were replaced by flashbacks of sirens and screams. Eventually he found that his knuckles had bruised and each punch left him feeling more pain than before, and the physical exertion only added difficulty catching his breath between sobs. He was left with no other choice than to collect himself on the floor of the gymnasium and only woke when the Captain himself found him and ordered him back to his quarters for some comfortable rest.

Tanner found herself void of emotions, as was her coping mechanism, and knew that eventually everything would come pouring out at the least opportune of moments but for now it was nice to be numb. As long as she didn't come across anyone or anything that may encourage her to think too much about the previous day. To ensure this, much like Zarus and Taro, she refused to leave her quarters. The bed was too big for her comfort, and even with the lights turned off the room was too bright, and so she built a small fort in a corner behind a table where it was nice and dark. She sat curled into herself against the wall in the shadows and stayed there.

Anyone that walked the corridors where the Discovery survivors were housed, or went anywhere near sick bay, had no difficulty to hearing a mourner's cry or an argument between two or more crewmen about who was to blame. Dr. McCoy had moved past trying to prevent or intervene in these instances and had decided it better to let them fight it out amongst themselves so that he could do his work. There was a man in severe condition who, though unconscious, was holding onto life and needed his undivided attention.

The man was the only crewmember rescued who seemed old enough to have been trained with any form of experience. Beyond that, he seemed to have been dearly loved by the others rescued with him. Especially Araya, the Discovery's "doctor".

Even in his unconscious state scanners showed that he was in immense pain. Nothing that he did seemed to improve his condition and Dr. McCoy was becoming increasingly frustrated with the situation, as well as desperate.

While he tried to save the man Araya sat at a table beside the door, organizing files and procedures with shaking hands. Her work was interrupted however by someone clearing their throat beside her.

"Oh, uhm, Dr. McCoy is… busy," she explained shyly while standing to greet the Enterprise's Captain and first officer. The two took in the small girl's appearance and stature and was amazed that she was even old enough to have been a part of her crew. She stood no taller than Jim's shoulder and he was half tempted to attribute that to her shoes. Her hair was a long, wavy white blonde and was determined to hide her face no matter how much the girl pushed it back. She stood with her arms wrapped around herself, and toes pointed in, a typical sign of anxiety that did not go unnoticed by either of them.

"What's your name?" Jim questioned casually while waiting for McCoy to finish treating his patient.

"Araya, Sir."

"Araya, beautiful name." he smiled smoothly, earning a raised brow and quizzical stare from the Vulcan beside him.

"No better than any other name."

She turned to watch the desperate attempt to save the man in the next room and said nothing more. For a while both officers watched with her until she began to shift her weight and chew her hair absently.

"You know, Doc. McCoy is the best surgeon in the fleet. I've never seen a better doctor," Jim commented. His matter-of-fact statement seemed to calm her but only for a moment until a cursed "damn it!" sounded from said doctor.

"Bones,"

"Not now Jim, can't you see I'm working?" he snapped back and continued to fight the inevitable.

Araya took a deep steadying breath and felt a hand on her shoulder as Jim tried to comfort her in the sight of another friend dying. She took his hand in both of hers instead and held on for a moment while collecting herself but when the equipment's alarms and McCoy's refusal to let the man go got too much for her she pushed the Captain away and walked to the surgeon's side, stepping between him and his patient.

"Hey, Mr. Baracnik ," she smiled sadly while taking his hand in hers, "I know you're not awake but I think you can hear me. I won't be mad at you if you go… you can let go Mr. Baracnik. We're safe here, y-you did good."

Her tears fell and mixed with his own sweat, which she wiped away with her sleeve. The monitors went off, signaling slowing heart rate and dropping vitals, but she held herself together and held onto the man before her. "D-don't, don't you worry Mr. Baracnik." she gasped, holding back her sobs as the beeping ceased and McCoy sighed in defeat.

She closed her eyes against the universe while the documentations of his death were made. She held his hand to her forehead and mourned with hushed sobs, coughing on her own pain and collapsing beside his bed when his hand was taken from her so that his body could be moved.

"Couldn't you give her a sedative?" Jim demanded as his chief medical officer leaned against the wall and watched her cry.

"No, Jim. She needs to go through this, it'll only do her worse if I stop it." he answered but the pain in his voice was evident. Her hushed crying had become gasps and high pitched sobs that were soulful and filled with agony and grief. Clearly the man who had just been lost was someone she valued but no one could have known how much.

Araya couldn't hear any conversations around her during her grieving. She didn't even notice when the others had left and she was alone on the floor beside an empty table where one of the most influential people in her life once lay. At some point a blanket had been draped over her shoulders but she didn't remember it happening. She remembered Captain Kirk trying to calm her down for a while, resting his arm around her and offering any words of comfort he could but was eventually called away on duties. For a while after that Dr. McCoy had sat with her, as well as Nurse Chapel who held her like she would a young child. Now that she was calmed enough to coherently take in her surroundings she pushed herself to her feet and left the darkened room.

"Well look who's up and moving," McCoy announced as she neared him. Normally when he greeted her in such a way she would smile shyly and turn the attention to anything other than herself. This time however she shrugged a simple "yeah," and left his blanket folded neatly beside him at his desk before walking for the door, muttering "Thank you for all your help." as she took her leave.

Araya was surprised to find a small campout set outside the door to her quarters, comprised of two young women with identical tribal markings tattooed on their faces. "I really just want to be alone." She muttered while stepping over one of the young women and opening the doors but was followed by both. "No, not this time. We do not leave our own to suffer." they answered in heavily accented unison as the doors closed.

Meanwhile back in sick bay McCoy was seated at a table, exhausted mentally and physically, as his Captain returned from his duties to discuss the Discovery situation.

"Well, we've made all necessary reports. These cadets aren't any of Starfleet's."

"No, Jim, I'd say not. To tell you the truth though I don't rightly care where they're from, we need to find out what happened to them and make it right. Get 'em home at least."

"That's my thoughts exactly, Bones."

A few minutes of thoughtful silence passed between the two officers until another argument broke out in the hall between two Discovery crewmen. This time it seemed one was blaming the other for a friend's death in sick bay. McCoy sighed heavily and attempted to rub the stress from his eyes. "You're the finest medical officer in the fleet, Bones. Those kids just didn't have enough left to hold on, it isn't your fault. I know as well as anyone else aboard this ship that you and your staff have done everything you can do."

"Jim, I've lost five patients since those kids came aboard! I can't take that lightly!"

"I'm not asking you to Bones. I am reminding you, however, that those kids need to see us with confidence. They're scared, they weren't prepared for any sort of mission but they were sent out anyway, why? We don't know why! We need to find out why, and we need to get them taken care of, and in the meantime we need to do what we can to take care of them here! That girl that hangs around here, Araya, she looks up to you. I saw it today when you were working on that Mr. Baracnik fellow. See what you can find out about her."

"I'm a doctor Jim, not a babysitter."

Both men shared an exasperated grin and moved their conversation to a more casual discussion until the time came for both to retire to their quarters for the night.


End file.
